Community solar gardens are projected to grow five-fold by 2020, adding another 1.8 gigawatts of facilities, according to a report by GTM Research.

Through the end of 2014, 66 megawatts of solar gardens were installed, and over the next two years, four states – Colorado, California, Massachusetts and Minnesota – will install the majority of community solar.

The four states will serve as the “core driver” for the market with more than 80 percent of the installations over the next two years, according to the Boston-based green energy marketing and consulting firm.

Twenty-four states have at least one community solar project online, and 20 states have or are in the process of enacting community solar legislation. GTM Research identified 29 developers that are actively working on community solar projects.

Still, the two Colorado-based companies –- Clean Energy Collective and SunShare –- account for 32 percent of the operating community solar gardens. “Clean Energy Collective and SunShare provide proof of concept,” said Cory Honeyman, a GTM Research solar analyst. “They showed it could be done and is scalable.”

That is why both Louisville-based Clean Energy Collective, or CEC, and Denver-based SunShare have attracted partners and financial backing.Read more…

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Charging stations are seen as a key to more EVs on the road source: AP

The number of electric vehicles on Colorado roads has grown more than 150-fold since 2011 but it can grow a lot more, according to a study from the Colorado Energy Office.

In 2011 there were 20 electrical vehicles, or EVs, in Colorado and by early 2014 there were 3,100 EVs in the state.

Among Colorado’s 64 counties, 57 had at least one registered electric vehicle. Five counties accounted for about 63 percent of the vehicles, which included electric hybrids and pure battery-powered cars. Those top counties are:

Solar panel field in Mosca, Colorado, in the San Luis Valley. (Denver Post file)

Renewable energy reached 15 percent of total electric generating capacity in 2013 and accounted for nearly two-thirds of all new installations for the year, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The Golden-based federal laboratory has issued its annual Renewable Energy Data Book providing a comprehensive view of renewable energy resources in the country.

Here are a few of the NREL study’s findings:

Since 2000, cumulative renewable electricity installations in the United States have nearly doubled, and in 2013 they represented 171 gigawatts of installed U.S. capacity. Every renewable electricity technology added capacity in 2013, with overall renewable electricity capacity increasing 4.6 percent.

U.S. renewable electricity in 2013 was 14.8% of total overall installed electricity capacity and 13.1% of total annual generation in the United States.

Utility-scale solar set a record with 2.3 gigawatts installed 2013, with bulk of the construction in California, Arizona and Nevada, according to a report by SNL Energy.

The 2013 installations were a 35 percent improvement on 2012 the previous record year. The bulk of the capacity – 1.1.4 gigawatts – came on line in the forth quarter in 2013

The largest of the fourth quarter projects was the 250-megawatt Solana Generating Station in Maricopa County, Arizona. The $2 billion plant is owned by Abengoa SA. The second biggest project that came online was 139-MW Campo Verde Solar in Imperial County, Calif.

Surprising, the report noted a large number of smaller projects projected on the east coast such as 5-MW unit at the Randleman Area Solar facility in Randolph County North Carolina and a 2.2-MW unit at the City of Bridgeport Landfill solar project in Connecticut.

The U.S. has 35,700 MW of utility-scale solar capacity in development, with 17,675 MW scheduled to come online by the end of 2016, according to SNL.

The growth has been spurred by a drop in utility-scale solar pricing that is making it increasingly competitive with wind and natural gas, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analysis, which found that the amount utilities were being charged per-megawatt hour in purchase power agreements was falling about $25 a year.

In 2013, the agreements average slightly more than $50 a megawatt-hour, wind and natural gas costs are between $30 and $60 a megawatt-hour.

Construction is also being spurred by the prospect in the rollback of the 30 percent federal investment tax credit on projects,SNL said.

The parcels covering 3,705 acres, in Conejos and Saguache counties, if fully developed could hold solar plants that produce about 400 megawatts – enough energy to power 125,000 homes, according to federal officials.

The auction will combine two goals the Obama administration has been promoting – solar energy zones and market auctions for the resources.

The federal Bureau of Land Management in 2012 created 17 solar energy zones in covering 285,000 acres in six western states where utility-scale solar projects can be fast-tracked because they are close to transmission lines and they are not in environmentally sensitive areas. Since then two additional zones, one in California and one in Arizona, have been added since then.Read more…

“The numbers aren’t good news or bad news,” said Paul Denhom, one of the study’s authors. “It’s just that there was not an understanding of actual land-use requirements before this work.”

The amount of land needed varied by technology with the total area needed ranging, based on generating capacity, from 2.8 acres per gigawatt-hour per year for a photovoltaic panel install that follows the sun to 5.3 acres acres for a Dish Stirling concentrating solar unit, which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s heat.Read more…

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Solar photovoltaic installations in the US have passed the 10 gigawatt plateau, making it the fourth country to reach that level of solar power.

Solar photovoltaic installations has been one of the fastest growing energy sources in the US over the past six years, with a compound annual growth rate of over 50% since 2007, according to NPD SolarBuzz, a market analysis firm.

Solar PV installations are forecast to increase an additional 80% over the next 18 months, surpassing 17 gigawatts by the end of 2014, according SolarBuzz forecasts.

Led by California’s large, utility-scale arrays, the bulk of the solar power has been installed in the West.

“The US has now joined an elite group of maturing solar PV markets that have accumulated more than 10 GW of installed capacity,” said Christopher Sunsong, analyst at NPD Solarbuzz. “Only Germany, Italy, and China have more installed PV capacity than the US. The US is only the fourth country to reach the 10 GW milestone.”

The region of the county that has been notably absent from America’s renewable energy game has been the South – but now at least on the edges there are signs of life.

The quarterly North American market report from NPD Solarbuzz, a market research group, projects a 20 percent increase in solar energy installations in 2013 over 2012 – a record high 4.3 gigawatts.

It isn’t your father’s home solar array (or yours for that matter) that is driving the growth but large utility scale projects, in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Those are all states with sun and wide open deserts and plains. These projects will account for 2.5 gigawatts, according to Solarbuzz

Still, residential rooftop will account for 18 percent of the growth and large commercial installations for 14 percent.Read more…

While Colorado has one of the nation’s highest renewable energy standards, between 2000 and 2010 it also had one of the biggest increases in carbon dioxide emissions, according to federal Energy Information data.

Colorado saw a 13.9 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions to 96.5 million metric tons. That place it behind Nebraska, which had a 16 percent jump to 48 million tons, and Iowa with an 14.1 percent rise to 88.7 million tons.

One driver was a 38 percent increase in emissions from burning natural gas, which contributed 26.8 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2010. Most of that came from industrial operations and electricity generation.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and is linked in scientific studies to climate change

In all, 32 states saw declines in their carbon emissions and 18 recorded increases in emissions. The biggest drops were in Delaware, 27.9 percent to 11.7 million tons, and New York, which cut emissions 18 percent to 172 million tons.

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.